Coming on the heels of Adobe's Premium Features for Flash (developers will be required to pay Adobe 9% of revenue above $50,000 if they use certain high-tech features), comes a new, upcoming feature for Adobe flash CS6.0 : Metered Usage For ActionScript.

Announced today, Adobe will start charging developers per centimeter of written ActionScript code. A new feature of the Flash IDE will be the "Meter Stick", an interface element that will run along the left side of the ActionScript editor, tallying up the value of the ActionScript in an open .as file. When a .fla is exported, the entire value of all included .as files will be displayed in the export Window. Before the .fla can be compiled into a .swf, .ipa, or .apk, payment must be rendered. Adobe will accept only Discover, Paypal, or Facebook Credits as legal tender for the transaction. Once payment is made, the .fla will export to the target format , and the developer can show the output to their client, boss, or do whatever they want with it.

An Adobe spokesman said of the new feature "Adobe recognizes that the web still runs on Flash, no matter what Apple and Microsoft would have you think, and we believe we should be fairly compensated for that reality. The best way to do this is to charge for ActionScript usage."

When asked the question "why can't developers just put all of their code on one line?" the Adobe spokesman said "We already thought of that. Adobe has defined a line as "128 bytes or a carriage return, whichever comes first." When asked if developers will have to pay every time they export their code, the Adobe spokesman said "Oh no, no of course not. We will use a heuristic algorithm to find the differences from the last export. The developer will only have to pay for the changes. Hey, we might be crafty, but were not evil."

To many observers, this appears to be a good way to convince developers the move from Flash to HTML5 as quickly as possible. The Adobe spokesman responded to this by laughing and saying "Have you tried to play a sound with that sh*t? It's nearly impossible. Good luck making a game with it!" After rolling on the floor laughing, he got up, composed himself, then continued, "Last year we brought out Adobe Edge for HTML5. We also started working to support JQuery Mobile which will be instrumental for the Adobe Edge IDE. Guess what? The Meter Stick is gonna end up in Edge as well, measuring and charging for your JavaScript usage b*tches! You can't escape us!"